As the 2016 election approached, then-candidate Donald Trump’s rhetoric escalated. He would lose only if there was fraud committed against him, he said at multiple points, and he regularly derided the process as “rigged.” During the third presidential debate, Trump was asked whether he would recognize the results of the election.
“I will look at it at the time,” Trump replied. “I’m not looking at anything now. I’ll look at it at the time. What I’ve seen, what I’ve seen, is so bad.” He went on to disparage the media and elevate false claims about the risk posed by outdated voter rolls.
When he won the election anyway, this idea that he had somehow been cheated persisted. After all, he had lost the popular vote, so he has repeatedly as president asserted that somehow millions of illegal votes were cast without being detected, enough to suggest that it was he, not Hillary Clinton, who was actually the choice of the overall electorate four years ago. Continue reading.
